A Dance with the Shadow
by Nocturne Sylph
Summary: I used to only see the Shadow as it danced along the peripherals of my vision whilst George Michael sang and the phantom of Death hung over my shoulder, whispering joyful promises of time remaining in my ear. Now the colors swirl and I know that I should have paid more attention to words of the careless being.


_Author's Note:_

_I really do miss this show - it was so under appreciated and far too quickly cancelled. I'm personally non-religious, and people found it odd that I fell in love with it, but I don't think that you need to have any sort of 'faith' to love it. This is just something I decided to write to assuage my sadness at its having ended. (Of course, I watched it as it was released, but I never thought to write for it until a few months ago.) I don't know whether or not my writing's any good, but I wanted to have this out in the fray in any case. There are far too few pieces for this show anywhere online.  
_

_Disclaimer: Of course I own no right to this show, nor do I even hope to make claim of it._

* * *

The ceiling is swirling in a strange mix of what definitely aren't its normal colors. I know that it shouldn't look like that, and I definitely know that there's no way in hell I should be seeing it like that, but everything feels so... warm, comfortable... safe. I know it shouldn't though. I shouldn't be comfortable with the sensations. I know that I should be more concerned about the fact that I can't move, or that I can hear someone knocking at the door, or that I _can't move_, but it just...

"Eli?"

It's just not important anymore. I force myself to blink, as arduous as the effort to do so is, but I can't force my eyes to turn to the doorway as I hear the apartment door open to see how far in Nate is. They stay fixed to the ceiling. The swirl of streaked multicolored lights.

"Eli, you here?" He calls out to me again. I can hear him moving around the different rooms. Shuffled footsteps against the different floors.

Four...

Three...

Two...

"Eli?"

Earlier than I'd thought. Always start from three, five, or ten. Never start from four or seven. Rarely start from one, two, six, eight or nine, though sometimes, rarely, they'll come through. I watch the swirling above me. It's gorgeous; a mix of blues, purples, reds and greens. Soft colors. Comforting.

"Eli?" He sounds cautious now in his calling, and I can see him come to the outermost of my peripherals. "Eli, are you okay?"

I force myself to blink again. My eyes feel wet. I know that they aren't tears, but I can't be sure what it is.

"Oh fuck- Eli!"

He's suddenly above me, but the instinct to blink against the motion doesn't win against the sheer effort the act would take. If I manage to close my eyes, I may not be able to open them again.

"Eli, can you hear me? Give me some sign you can hear me, please." The half-doctor, half-older brother worried look I had come to know off by heart a long time ago appears on his face as he started shining a pen-light in my eyes. Something he always carries with him, and something I always make fun of him for. I manage to blink against it, but only because the light's an ice-pick in my eyes, piercing through to the back of my skull and blinding me. He grabs my hand. The pressure is grounding and the swirling behind him slows slightly. "Hey, squeeze my hand if you can hear me. C'mon Eli, give me something. Some sign. Please... Please, Eli."

It felt more like a spasm more than anything else, but I manage to move my fingers. It seems to be an encouragement to Nate though, as he rapidly blinking back a few tears that slipped free. I don't remember him starting to cry. He leans over slightly, his lips brushing against my forehead for a brief, barely there moment.

"That's great Eli. You're gonna be okay, you just gotta..." His voice cracks, and his Adam's apple jumps against his skin. I don't like making him cry. I don't like making anyone cry, but he's always been a special case. "You just gotta stay with me, alright? You just gotta stay with me. You have to do that for me."

A short, sharp pain goes through my chest before I even think about trying to answer him. My lips barely twitch, and I can't make any sound of reassurance. He has his cell phone in hand in any case, pressed up against his ear. Not paying attention to me. Not now. He's talking to someone in a quick, hard tone. I can't concentrate on the words though. Everything is too hazy, noises going out of focus and every so often barely becoming something slightly coherent.

"Eli- open your eyes," Nate's voice seems to come through a tunnel, echoing around my ears. "Eli, please, open your eyes for me. C'mon, don't do this."

I breathe out slowly, trying to focus on movement of my eyelids. The contraction of the muscles to lift them. I hadn't even noticed them closing.

"That's it - open your eyes for me, okay?"

Everything is tinted red, even the multi-colored ceiling that still swirls around Nate's head like water spinning, being pulled down a drain but never quite getting there.

The noise I vaguely hear from Nate sounds strangled. "The ambulance will get here soon, alright? Just..." I could feel his hand on my head, pushing back my hair. "Just stay with me, please." His breath catches again, and his hands shake. "Don't leave me, Eli- don't leave us. You gotta stay with me."

Breathing is getting strenuous, painfully so. My chest aches dully. There's shouting, but it sounds far away. As my fingers twitch uselessly against Nate's palm, I wonder if any of this is actually real. His hand is warm, tightly clasped over mine. I can taste blood, warm and metallic and revolting. His voice moves around my ears, never quite reaching to form coherent sounds or words. It feels real.

My vision turns grey before it fades away into nothingness. It feels surreal. There's no black, no white, no state of in-between. Just a complete absence of anything and everything.

You know, I used to think of death as something that was just going to appear one day, a shadow that would cross my path a split second before everything ended. Cut to black, end of the show, time to go home folks. All that clichéd jazz people spout in dramatic, over the top theatrics.

For all I thought about death, the last few weeks have had the phantom everyone fears so deeply to be stalking them being a familiar weight hanging weightlessly and carelessly over my shoulder, whispering joyful but ignored promises of time left in my ear and watching with amusement as the shadow danced by itself along the peripheral of my vision as George Michael sang and transformed everything around me into something more than reality could ever hope to give.

Somehow, from the time I first saw George Michael standing in my living room singing _Faith_ to now, I'd become so accustomed to the thought that every breath could be my last, that every single time I saw someone could be the last time, that I'd come to accept that soon enough, at a time that would never be right to me, the shadow would no longer dance along my peripheral but rather stand in front of me, its almost translucent hands extended towards mine in a silent invitation I wouldn't be able to refuse.

I don't know how, but I'm not lying on the ground anymore. There are no hands on my shoulders or my face or my chest and there's no voice screaming supposed words at me that just sound like guttural noises. I think that I'm standing upright, but there's no weight on my legs. And even though I can't see the shadow, the murky, not quite translucent nor opaque figure I'd come to know the edges of so well, I know that it's there, its long, thin fingers uncurling and stretching out towards me. A silent, invisible invitation to something I never thought I'd care to find out about. To something I'd always thought I would fear when the time came.

As my fingers brush over its own, taking the proffered hand, I wonder whether our first dance will be a slow waltz or the jitter-bug.


End file.
